Here We Go Again

Drawing parallels between the Flyers’ abysmal start and their worst season in franchise history

By Marcus White

The Philadelphia Flyers began the 2006-07 season 1-6-1, their worst start in franchise history. Head Coach Ken Hitchcock was fired and replaced by assistant coach and former Flyer John Stevens. Sound familiar? Seven seasons later, the Flyers find themselves in an eerily similar situation.

One win in eight games? Check.

Underperforming offense? Check.

Major questions in the crease and on the blueline? Check.

A head coach fired two seasons removed from a division title, replaced by an ex-Flyer, as is also the case with Peter Laviolette and Craig Berube? Check and check.

Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images

Unlike the 2006 season, the Flyers’ general manager still has a job. Despite this, Paul Holmgren finds himself in a similar position that then-GM and Flyers’ great Bobby Clarke found himself in 2006. Holmgren, like Clarke, has yet to construct a Stanley Cup champion or solve Philly’s longstanding issues in the net, seeing a once-promising group plummet into the league’s cellar.

Additionally, a former Flyer is waiting in the wings as an assistant GM, just as Holmgren was in 2006. In a cruel bit of irony, however, the man predicted by many to replace Holmgren is the one in the crease that the Flyers under Clarke and Holmgren have struggled to replace: ex-goaltender Ron Hextall.

Not all of the similarities between the two seasons are negative, however. As they did in 2006, the Flyers have a solid core of young players that have yet to enter or are just entering their primes. In ‘06, it was the likes of Richards, Carter, Coburn and Gagne providing Flyers fans hope for the future, as Couturier, McGinn, Schenn and Giroux are now.

And while Flyers fans are still hoping for a return to the playoffs this season, a significant revamp of the squad this offseason, as was the case after ‘06, could see the team return to the league’s elite sooner rather than later.

The blueprint for a quick turnaround is there, but it needs modifications if the Flyers are to experience the peaks of sustained achievement without the valleys of failure.

Chief among them, of course, is ending the goaltending carousel that has characterized the Flyers since Hextall’s retirement in 1997 and finding a long-term solution between the pipes.

Whether the GM who finds the solution is the one who has been unable to since 2006, or the last to fill the void, remains to be seen. But, whoever is tasked with returning the Flyers to their former glory, must avoid the mistakes the team has made in the past.

Otherwise? It’ll be deja vu all over again in the City of Brotherly Love.